Security Service release: Introduction

This is the 29th Security Service records release containing a total of 77 files and bringing the number of Security Service records at The National Archives to 5,003.

As with previous releases, around three quarters of the records are personal files relating to individuals (KV 2), with the remainder a combination of subject files (KV 3), policy files (KV 4) and list files (KV 6). The records cover a range of subjects and span the inter-war, Second World War and post-war eras.

Personal files are listed under the following categories:

German Intelligence Agents and Suspected Agents (KV 2/3703-3712)

Other Espionage cases (KV 2/3713)

Subject of Security Service Enquiry (KV 2/3714-3726)

Soviet Intelligence Officers (KV 2/3727)

Soviet Intelligence Agents and Suspected Agents (KV 2/3728-3756)

Subject files (KV 3/427-435)

Policy files (KV 4/466-475)

List files (KV 6/107-110)

Some files have been weeded while others have been reconstituted from microfilm of the original document and are therefore in photocopy form. Most personal files include a minute sheet attached to the inside cover, providing a useful index to the file.

Highlights include:

Ten post-war diaries of Guy Liddell, the then Deputy Director General of the Security Service, covering the years 1945 to 1953. The diaries include Liddell's impressions of notable early Cold War spies such as Klaus Fuchs, Guy Burgess and Kim Philby (KV 4/466-475)

Austro-German Prince Hubertus Lowenstein came to Britain after Hitler took power in Germany. An active, if eccentric, anti-Nazi he was anxious to build a Germany free from National Socialism and his personal ambition was said to be the German throne. (KV 2/3716)

Catholic priest Henry Borynski served in a largely Polish parish in Bradford in the early 1950s before his sudden and unexplained disappearance in 1953. There was initial speculation that he had been 'kidnapped by Red Agents and taken behind the Iron Curtain' but the case has never been solved. (KV 2/3722-KV 2/3724)